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A Quick Dynamic Range Followup and Example

Hurricane Florence is coming… Spent all day today starting to get ready. But yesterday I stopped by the causeway bridge to Litchfield beach and shot 1 roll of FP4+ film on my Fuji GA645zi changing between the red R24 and R25 filter. I was looking to the North from the bridge. It is a very beautiful spot and scene.

This is one of my go to spots when I am looking for inspiration and it did not fail to deliver for me. I was heading home but decided to stop at the studio and put the film into the processor, wait the 20 min then hang it in the dryer overnight.

But…

When standing there looking at the clouds I realized that the whites were going to be blown so I subtracted 30 seconds from the development time to compress them down towards Zone 8 so that I could capture the entire dynamic range, then in scanning moved them back up a bit to place them closer to my memory of them and bring the blacks up a bit! I love the effect the deep red filter gives to the blue sky.

How did I do this you ask? I am glad you asked!

With a hand held spot meter I measure the brightest white I desire texture in, then measured the darkest black for texture. Pushed the average button on the meter and got the zone 5 reading along with a chart showing max and min. This tells me that the whites will be blown out on the negative. SO I adjusted my exposure to give texture (Zone 3) in the blacks I wanted and let the whites fall where they will. In the processing knowing how far over exposed the whites are I can now adjust the developing time (-1N in this case) to compress the whites down to zone 8 (-30 seconds). Easy!

In the scanning software (VueScan) you have the opportunity in the extended menus to again shift the black and white points up or down. I simply adjusted both to expand the dynamic range back out to the range of the Gicle’e (RIP) printing system I use in my studio yet keep the whites from being blown out!

Measure the range of the scene and determine if the film can capture it all

Expose to move the blacks with texture to zone 3.

Pick a -N developing time according to where the whites fell in the negative (1 stop for this one)

Scan to keep the textured blacks at zone 3 and move the compressed whites back up where they belong in VueScan)

The Results:

The Causeway going to Litchfield Beach, SC

It was a pleasant and very satisfying endeavor and made me very happy today when I scanned this image on my way home from preparations.

I know, this was a really short post, but I was really pleased with the image results and the entire process was one of those “By the seat of the pants” type of evolution. I wanted to share again, now simple the process is for adjusting the range on film in development and scanning. There will be yet another one of these in the future but it will be VERY detailed and perhaps even with a video!

A Lesson On Life!

WIlly and the Pelican.. Southport, NC

I discovered Willy (his first name is Wet) at Fishy Fishy on the marsh front in Southport while Jamie Konarski Davidson and I were there last weekend and kindly asked the pelican flying overhead to land on Willy. He said that Willy was to small and his landing there would make Willy rock and ruin my shot so he landed on the larger boat then struck a pose for me. A really considerate bird that Pelican was! The scene was busy yet pleasing to me so I sat and talked to the Pelican (they are so chatty) for a bit while I shot the roll of film!

When I was done and started to leave the pelican squawked in his deep male pelican dialect “ what about compensation for pulling this scene together for you?” So i asked the fish monger behind me for a pelican sized payment and gave it to my birdie friend who promptly grabbed it and flew away without a word! I lowered my head in disappointment knowing that I should not have been hurt as all of the creatures live and die in the entitlement mentality! Oh well…

So… Here is Willy and the Pelican!

Willy and the Pelican

This was done with my Mamiya 645AFDii and a 45mm lens using FP4+ film processed in Xtol stock in my Filmomat processor, then wet mount scanned. Full data is below:

BTW, WIlly says he is looking forward to seeing all of you who are coming to the workshop there at the end of September!

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News Updates:

18 Nov 2012
I have added a new gallery in the top menu called Long Exposures where I will highlight my best long exposure work.

15 Sept 2012
Etymology of the word ‘photography’:

From the Greek words phos (“light”), and graphis (“stylus”, “paintbrush”) or graphí, together meaning “drawing or painting with light” – allwords.com

19 Aug 2012
I uploaded several new GPX files into the download area for your to grab. They (especially the Covered Bridge one) are all updated with several new locations! Plus there are several new ones as well!

18 Aug 2012
I have arrived back home after a 2 week grist mill trip including the West Virginia IR/COLOR Mill Workshop! We had a great time and captured many new images and met lots of great photographers! All counted I visited 8 mills during this trip.

21 June 2012
I seem to be falling more and more in LOVE with the Fuji X Pro 1 camera system as time goes by! Regardless of the negative comments online, the camera continues to impress me with EVERY attempt at a different type/style of photography I attempt with it. I rarely take out my large Canon equipment any more!

7 May 2012
Adobe Photoshop CS6 official release arrived today!!

6 May 2012
I updated the GPX files in the download section for you today. There are now 3 files that you can download to your GPS:

Grist Mills
Covered Bridges
Lighthouses

25 April 2012
Along with adding my galleries, I am also updating them with image descriptions! Just finished the Light House gallery!

9 Oct 2011
The Grist Mill GPS database project continues! Several months ago I started this project to build a GPX file of all the Grist Mills and Covered Bridges in the country. I have asked and continue to ask for help in this. If you know of any of these old mills or live near them so that you can provide GPS lat/longs for them please forward this info. So far I have almost 300 Mills in the GPX file which can be found in the download menu on the right side of this blog. There are 2 files, one for Mills and one for Bridges. Download them to your computer then you can download them directly into your GPS unit for your car!